Carbon trading — privatising the world’s forests

Carbon trading — privatising the world’s forests

Susan Austin

20 September 2009

Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is the name of a World Bank sponsored carbon offset program. The idea is to pay owners of forests in the global South to stop deforestation as a way of reducing carbon emissions.

The scheme generates “credits” for the carbon “saved” in the forests. If the scheme is ratified in December’s United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, these credits could be legally traded to companies in the developed world to enable them to meet domestic emissions reduction targets.

The scheme has faced widespread criticism for, in effect, privatising forests and allowing rich nations to evade responsibility for cutting emissions themselves. Now, evidence has emerged that the REDD scheme is being manipulated by carbon speculators.